Value-added Text: Where Graphic Design Meets Paralinguistics

Abstract

Expressive typography is the sine qua non of the graphic designer – font styles and parameters such as size and color are selected to lend additional interpretive potential to a plain text message. When applied by a designer the process is intuitive and is hardwired to a particular text. Value-added text (VAT) is an attempt to visually extend the semantic potential of a message still further in a computer-based environment and to render the process both algorithmic and dynamic, its principles being applicable to typographic (and to iconic) text. This paper emphasizes the exploration of potential paralinguistic mappings that exploit and extend the traditional vocabulary of typography. Much that can be communicated in human-to-human language is lost in its transfer to text but para-linguistics — which studies the features of communication that accompany, or substitute for, the bare words used – offers a gateway to an enriched presentation of text. VAT therefore proposes automated graphic proxies that communicate more in a typographic message than the literal semantics of the user’s native language and also offers potential assistance in cross-language communication.